For South Sudanese marathoner, Olympics would be the ultimate refuge

IOC can do the right thing by opening Olympic race to Guor Marial, a man who ran for his life

July 18, 2012|Philip Hersh | Globetrotting

Guor Marial as an Iowa State runner. ( Iowa State University athletics)

If the ideals of the Olympics as expressed in its charter still ring true in any way, the most resonant moment of the last Summer Games was the sight of Lopez Lomong, a refugee from civil war in the Sudan, carrying the U.S. flag into the opening ceremony at Beijing's Olympic Stadium.

There could be a similarly uplifting moment the final day of the 2012 Olympics involving another refugee from that conflict who, like Lomong, is a runner who wound up in the United States after growing up in what was then the southern part of Sudan but is now part of an independent country.

If Guor Marial is able to run in the Aug. 12 London Olympic men’s marathon, it will represent a triumph of the human spirit as dramatic as the one featuring Lomong, one of the “Lost Boys of the Sudan.”

The 2008 U.S. flag bearer was abducted by guerrillas who wanted to turn him into a boy soldier; escaped into refugee camps in Kenya; and went from there to a family in upstate New York, U.S. citizenship, a college degree, a career as a professional runner and a second Olympic appearance in London.

Because he was a U.S. citizen, all Lomong needed to compete in the Olympics was earn a place at the U.S. trials and meet the qualifying time standard.

Marial, a 2011 graduate of Iowa State University who now lives in Flagstaff, Arizona, met the Olympic “A” standard for the marathon last fall by finishing fifth at the Twin Cities Marathon in 2 hours, 14 minutes. 32 seconds. And he ran faster, 2:12.55, while finishing sixth at the San Diego Rock n’ Roll Marathon in June.

But his case is much more complicated than Lomong’s, although the International Olympic Committee can find a simple solution with flexibility and compassion similar to its actions allowing athletes from East Timor to compete at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Marial’s homeland now is an independent nation, the year-old Republic of South Sudan. Its government has had more pressing issues than the process of setting up a national Olympic committee recognized by the IOC. Such recognition is effectively a pre-requisite for Olympic participation.

“I completely understand the side of the IOC and the side of the South Sudan, which is a country starting from zero, and it is very hard for them to form (the structures) the IOC needs,” Marial said.

The IOC is trying to work out a way for Marial to compete for the Sudan, which contacted him after seeing the Twin Cities result. That is unacceptable to Marial for both emotional reasons and possible legal ramifications affecting his refugee status and his application for U.S. citizenship. It also is unacceptable to the government of South Sudan.

Marial said he told the Sudan Olympic Committee he was grateful for their invitation but had to decline it. When the IOC later told Marial he could join the Sudanese delegation, he replied, “It’s not right for me to do that. It’s not right for me to represent the country I refuged from.”

Especially given his account of the circumstances leading to the flight, as expressed in the narrative that follows.

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Guor Marial, 28, is a Dinka tribesman born April 15, 1984 in Pan de Thon, a village in Unity State in what is now South Sudan, bordering Sudan to the north. His family would be ravaged by the civil wars that began in 1955 and continued, with an 11-year break, until 2005.

Eight of Marial’s 10 full brothers and sisters died as a result of the war, some killed by Sudanese security forces, others by disease or hunger exacerbated by the conflict. A dozen or so other members of his extended family died under similar circumstances.

Marial’s family tried to send him in 1993 to live with an uncle in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. It took him three years to get there.

In 1994, he was kidnapped and taken to what now is Sudan as a child laborer. After escaping back to southern Sudan, he was taken again to Sudan in 1995 by a soldier and the soldier’s family, who forced Marial to work for them unpaid for a year. After returning a second time to Bentiu, now the capital of Unity State, he finally got to Khartoum.

In 1999, his uncle – a doctor – was arrested and accused of collaborating with south Sudanese rebels. The next day, Sudanese police burst into his uncle’s home and broke Marial’s jaw and his aunt's collarbone with rifle butts. After Marial spent several days in a hospital, he and his aunt fled to Egypt. His uncle joined them eight months later, having feigned death to survive when several prisoners were taken to the desert and killed.